Adviceâ€”May 2005

Dear Sparkle,
My humans are always complaining about what they refer to as my “barging in.” What this means is that they hate it when I open doors and let myself into rooms where I am apparently not wanted. Isn’t this kind of presumptuous of them? I mean, I live hereâ€”do they expect me to confine myself to certain areas of the house and avoid others? These humans are really poor roommates, if you ask meâ€”when they brought me home they never said anything about restrictions! In fact they should be thrilled with me for opening the doors as cleverly as I doâ€”my other feline roommate, who is a lot fluffier but quite a bit dumber, couldn’t open a door to save her life! Do you think I should dump this place and go find somewhere else to live that is a bit more amenable to my presence?
Signed,
Displeased

Dear Displeased,
It certainly sounds like your humans are a bit heavy on the house rules. Either that or they’re not up on cat etiquette. Any human with a bit of savvy should understand that cats go where ever they want in the house, period. That includes rooms with shut doorsâ€”bathrooms, guest rooms, closets and the like. If we can manage to get the door open, there is no reason for us to stay out. In general humans hate it the most when you “barge” into the bathroom while they’re in it. I don’t know what the big deal is about thatâ€”they certainly don’t take our feelings into consideration when we’re busy in the litter box. In fact my human will periodically sit and actually watch us cats when we’re in there! She says she needs to do this to check on our health, but I think it is rather nervy. So as you can see, you are not alone in your complaint. It is just another case of bad human behavior. Like, what else is new?

I do want to say that, judging by your cleverness and use of multi-syllable words, you are quite an intelligent kitty. But even the smartest cats can’t just pack up and move and expect to find a home that’s, as you say, more “amenable.” In fact, usually the opposite happensâ€”a runaway cat might not even find a new home at all and could wind up living on the streets and eating out of garbage cans. (Admittedly, I know some cats who think garbage cans are heavenly, but I get the feeling you are not one of them.) And if a new set of humans does take you in, there’s no telling what you’re going to get. They could be nice but uninformedâ€”like, they’ll give you that horrible, cheap canned food from the supermarket or never buy you cat toys. Or they could be downright awful, the kind of people who will ship you off to the pound the moment you have an “accident” or put a few claw marks on their couch. It’s a dangerous world out there. To be honest, I don’t see that your humans are all that bad, just a little rigid. You don’t say that they are doing anything about your “barging in” except complaining about it. And since when has complaining ever gotten in the way of a cat doing exactly what he or she wants to do? Just ignore them and go wherever you want to go. Maybe they’ll even get tired of complaining and pipe down after a while. As I’m sure you already know, persistence always wins out.